When it seemed like organized crime in Ecuador had shown its worst face with detonating car bombs in populated areas, killing police officers, hanging people on footbridges, extortion and kidnappings, this Thursday morning some thieves brought an explosive charge to the security guard of a pawn shop, which they threatened to blow up.
Javier works as a security guard at a shop that mainly stores jewelry in the Sauces 9 sector, north of Guayaquil, the city that has recorded 565 violent crimes in three months. The young man was kidnapped by criminals on his way home the night before and left near his place of work this morning with explosives wrapped around his body. He walked disoriented down the street in this densely populated area until public safety officers arrived and cordoned off the place.
Surrounding merchants quickly closed the doors, fitted padlocks and the busy Sauces IX market, which was only a few yards from where the man was, was evacuated. The scene seemed fictitious. The police officers helped an explosives expert put on his suit and approach the suspect with the bomb. He nervously waits with his forehead on a light pole and is told not to move and to remove his coat to reduce the chance of heat activating the device. Javier asked for water and to call his family. The television broadcast the dramatic moment live.
Neighbors are praying for the man who was planted in the chest with an explosive device on the streets of Guayaquil this Thursday. Cesar Munoz (AP)
The bomb warden approached him and handed him a radio. He checked the rest of his body. The device had an extension on his left leg and a cellphone on his chest, which the criminals told him would detonate the explosives by calling that phone. It was three tense hours before the police managed to free Javier from the device in front of the residents of the sector. Some cried. “I’ve never seen anything like it, a boy with explosives on his body,” says Melba, who witnessed the events. “All boundaries have been crossed,” finished another woman named Lucía.
Authorities have not provided any further information on the reasons behind this macabre event. Preliminary data shows it would be an attempted robbery at the premises. The thieves knew that Javier kept the keys to the safe. However, it could not be carried out because other codes were required, which were in the hands of another employee.
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That fact adds to the 40 explosives warnings registered in Guayaquil so far this year, says William Villarroel, police commander of the country’s most violent city. Ecuador is going through a crisis of insecurity beyond the control of Guillermo Lasso’s government, which is politically grappling with the impeachment it will face in the legislature in the coming days.
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